It’s not often that a single MP can significantly affect important events on Parliament Hill, much less hold a majority government to account for its actions, but Green Party leader Elizabeth May aims to do just that this week, and should be commended for her effort.

Ms. May plans to spearhead a campaign intended to derail or delay the Conservative government’s effort to pass its Brobdingnagian budget bill. The bill has enraged and dismayed many Canadians, not only among the opposition parties but among many Canadians upset at the government’s blatant attempt to steamroll Parliament by stuffing dozens of important changes into one piece of legislation, which it hopes to force on the country via its majority status.

Many of the changes are reasonable enough in themselves. The gradual increase in the age of eligibility for Old Age Security is prudent and necessary, and will be introduced over an extended period designed to minimize the impact on recipients. An overhaul to the Employment Insurance system is long past due, and the planned changes are far from radical despite the overheated rhetoric of NDP and Liberal critics. And there will be no great loss in the repeal of the Fair Wages and Hours of Labour Act, an outdated relic of an earlier age.

But those are just a few of the 70 changes opponents say the Conservatives have crammed into a bill that is more than 400 pages long, many of them slipped in unobtrusively, with no notice and limited chance to debate them. Though many may be harmless housekeeping, without the opportunity for public assessment it is difficult to know for sure. And the very fact the government has gone to such efforts to avoid questioning raises obvious suspicion about their motives.

Particular attention has focused on the extensive changes to environmental legislation. The government maintains it is eliminating red tape, streamlining processes and removing the opportuity for partisan activists to sabotage the system. Yet opposition has come to encompass a surprising mix of people.

Former Reform MP Bob Mills warned last week that Canada will “pay a price” for the Tories’ approach on environmental issues and suggested Prime Minister Stephen Harper had surrounded himself by “a bunch of cheerleaders” who were afraid to challenge him on important issues. A group of four former fisheries ministers wrote the Prime Minister protesting changes to fishery protections, with former Conservative minister Tom Siddon complaining that they make “Swiss cheese” of existing rules. A leaked video of Tory MP David Wilks makes clear that backbenchers feel shut out of any input into major issues such as the omnibus bill. And former prime minister Brian Mulroney appeared to suggest – delicately – that the Harper government was out of tune with Canadian sentiment, noting that environmental protection is a key issue with middle class voters, and adding:

“I think the government and the opposition should take a good look at their obligations to leave our environment, which is pretty magnificent, even more splendid than it is now.”

The Conservatives have turned a deaf ear, leaving it to the likes of Ms. May to mount her resistance. As the leader of a one-seat party that lacks official party status, she is in a unique position, able to propose basic changes to the bill. Due to a parliamentary rule, other MPs are able only to suggest deletions. Ms. May can go much further, and has seized the opportunity to prepare more than 300 amendments which – joined with hundreds more proposed by the Liberals and NDP – will keep MPs tied to their seats for much of the week. Since the budget bill is a matter of confidence, the Conservatives need their majority to avoid an election, and too many snoozing backbenchers could end in defeat.

The government accuses its opponents of playing politics for partisan purposes, but the opposition didn’t assemble this indigestible bill, and if the Tories are so certain of its parts they shouldn’t be fighting so fiercely to save them from srutiny.

Ms. May says she’s tried to be “respectful” of Conservative aims as far as environmental reforms go. “What I don’t respect is that it’s illegitimate to put all these changes in a budget bill.”

It’s the opposition’s job to review legislation and propose improvements, whether it fits the government’s agenda or not, she says.

“That’s our right. It’s not some kind of game.”

She’s right, and the government would be wise to pay attention to her. It has become accepted wisdom that Conservative treatment of the legislative process is often high-handed and abusive, has contributed to public cynicism and borders on a threat to the democratic process itself. The Harper government’s approach to the omnibus bill is a prime example of this, and every effort to halt it, or break its components into digestible parts, is to be supported and praised.

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